


this world is not made for you

by faenova



Category: Magic Kaito, 名探偵コナン | Detective Conan | Case Closed
Genre: Ableist Language, Autistic Hakuba, Blood and Injury, Bullying, Embedded Images, Gen, Overstimulation, Self-Harm, meltdowns, the self-harm isn't intentional
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-13
Updated: 2020-07-13
Packaged: 2021-03-04 17:49:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 14,094
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25250395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/faenova/pseuds/faenova
Summary: Saguru is three, and he’s diagnosed with autism. He doesn’t know what that means, and he won’t for a while.A look at Saguru's childhood up until canon events.
Relationships: Hakuba Saguru & Baaya | Hakuba Saguru's Housekeeper, Hakuba Saguru & Superintendent-General Hakuba
Comments: 25
Kudos: 99





	this world is not made for you

**Author's Note:**

> saguru is just... really obviously autistic. and i love him, and he doesnt have a backstory, so have this.
> 
> also the self harm isnt intentional if that puts you off, its uhh Bad End Of The Spectrum Stimming, he doesnt mean to hurt himself.
> 
> im sure theres inaccuracies with the falconry dont @me its anime

run, boy, run  
this world is not made for you

run boy run -woodkid

~

SAGURU IS THREE, and he’s diagnosed with autism. He doesn’t know what that means, and he won’t for a while.

~

SAGURU IS FOUR, and he still doesn’t talk. He understands what’s being said to him perfectly fine, but it’s so much easier to just make noises instead. He likes bird noises. (They’re loud and get everyone’s attention.)

~

Saguru cries easily, because everything is too much (too fast, too loud, too bright,) and it makes his head hurt and his skin itch. His mom and dad hug him tightly when he’s screaming or crying or hitting himself. (Squishing is good.) It helps him calm down. His parents get him a weighted blanket that he can crawl under when he feels bad. It’s easy to sleep under it.

~

SAGURU IS FIVE, and he’s put in special education immediately upon entering primary school. He’s set apart as different before he even realizes it.

He gets called annoying for slapping his hands on the desk and flapping when he’s excited or for crying all the time or for talking too loud and using big words. Older kids ask him if he’s retarded because he’s in special ed and he talks weird.

He doesn’t understand just yet why they talk to him like this.

~

Saguru gets into his first fight.

A classmate (Benjamin) shoves him in the hallway for not moving out of the way when he told Saguru to. Saguru promptly shoves him back, and they end up in a scuffle. Neither of them really gets hurt aside from a few scratches, but both of them end up crying and get off with a scolding and a quick mention of the incident to their parents.

~

He gets into his second fight not long after, because a girl made fun of him when he cried because he ripped a hole in his shirt. He screams and pulls her hair and hits her. This time he gets in a lot more trouble than before.

~

In his third fight, he bites a boy on the arm for trying to interrupt his (private) playing at recess.

Saguru starts noticing a pattern.

~

It’s better to avoid the other kids and watch birds.

Saguru just wishes they would avoid him too, because they make him angry. They make him want to hurt them. He just wants them to go away and stop bothering him.

~

SAGURU IS SIX, and his parents give him noise-cancelling headphones. (He hates them.) he doesn’t know they make him look weird, but they itch and make his head hurt. And worst of all, he can't hear bird calls with them on. It takes a lot of coaxing to make Saguru realize that the itching is better than constant noise, when everything is too much.

He can go shopping with his mom now. Even though the lights in the grocery store make his eyes hurt, the headphones make it better.

~

Saguru goes to Japan in the summer with his mother, as he always has. This time though, there’s a family reunion. There are a few kids around, but the closest to him in age is only three years old and Saguru can’t really play with him. His other cousins are all at least five years older than him and won’t include him, which is fine, because they think he’s weird anyway and he doesn’t need to deal with that. (He gets enough of that at school.)

Saguru is introduced to a lot of family members, and they kind of blur together since he can’t remember their faces. But the one that stands out is one of his aunties, (his father’s cousin,) Hakuba Mayu. She doesn’t seem to be that much older than his parents, but she’s already gone mostly gray. She calls him Bocchama, and he thinks she’s teasing him, (because he knows what teasing is now,) so he screeches in her face and hides under a table to avoid being scolded.

Mayu, however, peeks under the table and tells him, “I’m very sorry, Saguru-kun. I won’t call you that again if you dislike it.”

An apology? The only people who apologize to him are his parents, and... no, that’s it. Anything else has always been an apology under duress from classmates who don’t mean it. (And he knows they don’t mean it, because they say they don’t wanna apologize until an adult says they have to.)

“You weren’t making fun of me?”

“No.” She does something weird with her hands. “I wasn’t.”

“...You can call me Bocchama. If you want.”

She smiles at him, he thinks. It’s hard to tell, faces are hard. But he doesn’t think she would apologize if she’s being mean.

~

SAGURU IS SEVEN, and he reads his first Nancy Drew book that he found at the library. He’s completely enamored, reading it cover to cover in one sitting and several more times over the week that he has it checked out. It’s above his age range, his father says, and tells him what a good job he does for being able to read so well, even though Saguru had to look up a word or two. He loves it almost as much as he loves birds, he thinks.

His mother asks what he likes about it. Saguru doesn’t know, so he has to think about it. Four days later, he runs into the kitchen and screams, “DETECTIVES!” so loud that his mom nearly drops the dishes she’s holding.

“Detectives?”

“I like Nancy Drew because she’s a detective! She solves things!”

Saguru feels like every day is a puzzle he has to solve. (Trying to figure out what people are saying and what their faces are saying without words, and what’s right and wrong and trying to understand why people do things that don’t make sense to him.) Nancy Drew can do it so easily, solving things nobody else can. It’s so cool. (Saguru wishes he could solve the world as easily as Nancy Drew solves mysteries.)

~

Saguru gives a classmate a bruise on his cheek for stealing his shoes and throwing them in a mud puddle.

His mother sits him down on the couch and gives him a (stern) talk about why he shouldn’t hit people or get in fights, even if they make him mad.

“You need to be the bigger person. When you get in fights, nobody wins.”

“But I do win.”

“That’s...” she sighs. “Saguru, love, no.”

“I do, Mama!” He wins!

“That’s not what I mean. When you get in a fight, you get in trouble. That’s why it’s not winning.”

“They should get in trouble, not me.”

“I know that other kids are mean to you--”

“They make me mad,” he says. He’s identifying emotions, like his mother tells him to.

“I know. I know they make you mad, love.” She opens her arms. (Invitation.) Saguru scoots closer and lets her pull him into her lap. “But you need to learn to not hit people when you get mad. Do you understand that?”

“Yeah.”

“Can we work on it, then?”

“Mhm.”

“Alright. We’ll work on it.”

He understands that it’s not good. It’s just really hard not to hit people when they make him mad.

~

Saguru’s mother buys him more Nancy Drew books, as well as other mystery books. Saguru speeds through all of them almost as fast as he gets them, and continues re-reading even though he knows most of the plots by heart at this point.

She also shows him a movie with a man called Sherlock Holmes. He loves it. He loves Sherlock Holmes. (So much.) More than Nancy Drew and any of the other mystery books in his collection. 

He has to have more. His mother shows him all sorts of different movies and cartoons that feature Sherlock. He loves all of them.

~

In Japan, Mayu offers to babysit him while his parents are gone for the day. Saguru is skeptical. (He and babysitters don’t get along well.) But Mayu did apologize to him, so maybe she won’t be like other babysitters.

She mostly leaves him alone. (He likes that.) She only calls for him when it’s time to eat, and she doesn’t make him eat anything nasty. (He likes that too.) She doesn’t touch him or try to make him do stuff that makes his skin itch. (He likes that a lot.)

After lunch, Saguru tries to call out to the birds in the window. He tries squawking at them, but that makes them all fly away at once. “No!” He smacks the window over and over, frustration building.

“Ah, Saguru-bocchama,” Mayu comes up and circles around to look directly at his face. (He doesn’t like it, but he can’t tell people to stop looking at him.) “Were you trying to make bird calls?”

He smacks the window one more time for good measure. “Yes.”

“Well, screeching is going to make them think you’re angry at them.”

“I’m not angry at them!” He would never be angry at the birds! “I wanna talk.”

“Can you talk to them in a quiet voice instead? I know I asked you to speak up with me, but a lot of birds prefer quiet calls, like chirping or whistling.”

Saguru’s eyes go wide. “Whistling?”

“Yes, like this.” She whistles, demonstrating.

“Oh!” It does sound like birds. He flaps his hands excitedly. He has to try it, but it comes out as a weak _pfff_ noise.

“Ah, that’s so close!” Mayu claps her hands together once. “It takes a while to learn how to whistle. I’ll teach you.”

~

SAGURU IS EIGHT, and he punches a girl in the face. His classmate (Rebecca Peterson, the same age as him,) approaches him underneath the slide, where he likes to hide during recess and dig pits over and over in the sand to stick his bare feet in and cover them back up to see how it feels. She calls him cute, and says his eyes are pretty because they look different. He says that’s because he’s got monolids, and her face scrunches up in confusion, but she quickly goes back to her original topic.

“Do you think I’m cute too?”

And, when Saguru doesn’t know the appropriate response to a question, he usually just says “Sure,” and moves on.

“That means you like me.”

Does it? He doesn’t know her that well, but she’s talking to him right now, so, “I guess.”

“Boys and girls who like each other are supposed to kiss.”

“Okay.”

And she gives him a peck on the lips. Rebecca barely even grazes his mouth before he winds his arm back and his fist connects with the side of her head. She goes sprawling across the sand, and teachers are fast approaching because Rebecca’s crying is loud and shrill.

He gets detention, his parents are called, and he gets lectured. By the teachers. The Principal. His parents. His parents again. He understands that hitting is wrong, or at least it makes everyone mad. (But Rebecca made him mad too, why aren’t they scolding her for kissing him?)

Rebecca doesn’t talk to him anymore, but she didn’t do that much in the first place.

~

Saguru learns to make bird calls. Specifically, pigeon cooing. Mayu said birds like softer noises, and there are pigeons everywhere, so he tries to imitate them. Part of him still wants to screech at them, but when he coos they actually coo back. (Mayu was right after all.)

He sits in the backyard and coos at the pigeons that have nested in one of the trees.

Eventually, one comes down. (He lands right next to Saguru!) Saguru brings up his hands to start flapping, and the pigeon jumps back. Oh. Oh, right, birds get scared easy. (Like him.) He puts his arms back down slowly, and goes back to cooing noises.

The pigeon gets closer again. Saguru hopes he’ll get close enough to pet him, but no such luck. He flies off again soon after.

Saguru is going to get the birds in his backyard to trust him. (He will.)

~

Saguru has seen every movie and TV adaptation of Sherlock Holmes. (Every one that his parents say he’s allowed to watch.) But then, he finds the original Sherlock Holmes books on the library shelf. His mother warns he might not like it because of how it’s written, but Saguru doesn’t even care. He skips right over the words he doesn’t understand and barely does anything else barring eating and sleeping until he’s finished reading everything.

Saguru asks his mother to buy him his own copy of the complete collection. He brings the heavy book with him everywhere. He reads and rereads it almost every chance he gets. He loves Sherlock Holmes. (Maybe even more than he loves birds.)

~

Saguru is going to keep spending his summer months in Japan, but his mom says she might not always be there anymore. She’ll still be there most of the time, and dad of course will be home the same amount he usually is. But now, Mayu will be here also. (Forever?)

“I’m sure we’ll have fun together, Saguru-bocchama,” she greets him with a smile. (Sweet? A smirk? Still hard to tell.)

“Are you still gonna call me that?”

“You did say I could,” she reminds him. (It’s hard to focus on her face, she talks with her hands, waving them around like Saguru does when he gets excited.)

“Hmm.” He stares her down. He likes her, but it’s weird that she’s going to be here instead of his mom all the time. His mom is going to stay for a while until he gets used to Mayu, before she goes back to England for a couple of weeks. (He doesn’t like that.) So this means she can’t be a babysitter. (Those only stay for a little while.) So, she’s something like a nanny. “Baaya,” he says out loud. (Testing how it sounds.)

“I’m sorry, Bocchama. I can’t hear you when you speak quietly, remember?” She points to her ears.

“Baaya!”

She blinks. (Surprised?) “Me?” Mayu asks.

“Yeah.”

She makes a quick noise. (Snort? That’s laughing. Laughing at him?) “If that’s what you’d like to call me, that’s fine.”

He squints. (No, she’s not making fun of him, he thinks.) “Yeah.”

~

SAGURU IS NINE, and he’s put in social classes outside of school. They’re supposed to help him learn how to socialize and pretend to be normal, and allow him to connect to other kids on the spectrum for friendship and solidarity and so his parents can talk to other parents with autistic kids.

He’s pretty sure he hates all of them.

Their stims and ticks are loud and annoying and it makes him want to hit them. One boy screams all the time because he’s excited. One girl smacks people near her when she’s talking. One grinds his teeth. One has a fidget toy that won’t stop clicking.

He stays in the corner, far away from the other kids. He isn’t chastised for being antisocial, so long as he participates in the actual activities and proves that he’s learning.

He does learn, he just doesn’t like what he’s learning. Social rules are confusing and stupid and he hates it here. But his mom says it will help him, and he trusts her. So he tries not to put up too much of a fuss.

~

Mayu speaks to him softly when he gets scared, when things are too much, when he cries and screams. But it’s hard to hear her a lot when he’s like that, with ringing in his ears and everything hurting, so he doesn’t always know what she’s saying. She also uses her hands a lot, not touching unless he gives permission, but moving them as she speaks. He can focus on her hands. (It’s easier to focus on her hands than her face.)

Mayu uses her hands a lot when she speaks, in fact. Not like Saguru does, (not flapping and big gestures,) but quiet (can hands be quiet?) movements that he thinks people don’t really notice. But he notices because he watches very closely, like detectives do.

Saguru notices that she has patterns, and uses them over and over. The patterns match what she’s saying, sometimes. So he tries to pay extra close to her to see if he’s right.

“You’re talking with your hands,” he says to her just before bed, her hand hovering over the lightswitch in his room.

“Oh?” Her hand pulls away from the switch. “How so?”

“Um...” he frowns. (Concentrating.) “Talk.” He motions the sign that he thinks he’s matched with her saying the word talk. “With.” This sign, he’s more sure of. Then he stops short. “I don’t know how to say hands.”

Her eyes go wide. (Surprise.) “That’s... very close.” Saguru’s eyes immediately move away from her face to stare at her moving hands.

“Very close,” he repeats with both his voice and his hands. “Like that?”

“Yes!” (Happy.) “Goodness, you figured out sign language all on your own, did you?”

“I deduced it. Like Sherlock Holmes.”

“You certainly did,” she laughs. “I can teach you more, if you’d like.”

“Yes.”

“Tomorrow,” she adds.

“Yes,” he repeats. Then, repeats it with his hands, or what he thinks is the word yes, at least.

“Not quite. Like this.” She signs, “Yes.”

He repeats it properly.

She smiles. (She hasn’t stopped smiling.) “Goodnight,” she says with her voice and hands both.

He signs back “Goodnight,” without saying it out loud.

~

Saguru can whistle now. He can also imitate all the calls of 4 different species of birds native to England and Japan, as well as an additional 3 birds that he can imitate only some calls of.

Among those first 4, he thinks crows are the most important as far as wild birds go. Pigeons and doves are sweet and cute, but crows are smart. They’re the first birds who come to him when he calls, and don’t run away when they realize he’s not another bird.

A female with a scratched beak must have a nest nearby, because he notices her around his house in Japan and in the neighborhood a lot. He starts leaving things like bottle caps and foil candy wrappers in the yard for her to take.

Then, when he’s reading outside, she lands next to him with what looks like a wadded up candy wrapper in her beak and drops it on the grass. She then bounces back a few steps and caws. She’s brought another bird with her, (a male? A mated pair?) and they both start cawing at him. He caws back.

They keep on looking at him. Then, the female pecks the wrapper. “Oh, wait, do you want something?” More staring. “I can get you more gifts, hold on.” He goes inside the house, trying to find something metal or at least shiny. The female seems to like metal things the best.

He finds a paper clip, and goes back outside. He sits down and sets it on the grass in front of him. She immediately snatches it up, and Saguru does the same with the wrapper she brought him. (It’s only polite.) The pair fly away.

Saguru thinks he’s just made his first friends.

~

SAGURU IS TEN, and he has a meltdown in public. He’s in London with his parents, when his dad is here on one of his regular holidays. The street noises and lights are already too loud. He has his headphones on, but a car honking as it passes by sends him over the edge.

He tries to throw his headphones off at some point, he thinks. Everything is a blur until he can calm down.

When he’s more aware of his surroundings and not just noise and pain and bright lights, he’s sitting in his father’s lap and being held tightly. Saguru’s arms are pressed between their bodies so he can’t move them, and his face hurts. He’s still crying, breaths coming out in small hiccups that he can’t control.

His father carries him back to the car, and his mother sits in the backseat with him so she can keep hugging him. He’s still crying when they get home, but quiet now. He just can’t stop.

His mother puts bandaids on the sides of his face. Apparently, he scratched himself.

Saguru gets set up on the couch with his weighted blanket, and both parents squishing him on either side while they watch the Great Mouse Detective. It gets him to finally stop crying, but he still can’t talk. He can’t talk (he’s nonverbal) for the next two days, even after he feels better.

~

Saguru’s classmate (Leo Miller, 10,) is a jerk. Saguru hates him. He makes fun of Saguru when he cries, shoves him in the hallway, is always yelling too loud, and (his biggest offence,) he throws rocks at pigeons during recess. When Saguru sees him doing it the first time, Saguru walks away with a bruised jaw and Leo walks away with a pretty deep bite mark on his wrist.

The next time he sees Leo throwing rocks at birds is when he’s on his way home and passes by a park where Leo is. Saguru doesn’t hesitate. He also doesn’t bother with yelling first, or using his fists.

Saguru takes his textbook out of his bag, approaches quietly from behind, and swings it at the side of Leo’s head as hard as he can.

Apparently, Leo gets a tooth knocked out. Saguru doesn’t know, because he runs away in a panic as soon as Leo drops to the ground. But he finds out at school the next day when Leo tells everyone about what happened.

Saguru doesn’t get in trouble, because apparently Leo didn’t see Saguru in his hit and run. He keeps expecting punishment, and gets none.

~

Saguru really, really prefers birds over people. Birds make sense. He made friends with the pair of crows in Japan last year by exchanging gifts with them, and when he’s back in the country he sees them again in the backyard. The pair also bring two other crows with them, and it takes Saguru a few moments to realize that these are the pair’s children, born this spring.

They hop around him and caw at him, and he caws back. They don’t come close enough for him to pet them, not yet. But he keeps talking to them and exchanging various shiny gifts like coins, soda can tabs, foil wrappers, and even a necklace chain once. (He laughs when he imagines some poor woman who got the chain snatched right off her neck, even though he knows that’s probably not what happened.)

The day before he goes back to England, the mother crow with the scratched beak comes right up next to his leg. He hesitantly puts his hand out. She nudges it with her beak, and he carefully (carefully) runs a single finger over her head, just barely brushing her feathers. She flies away before he finishes the stroke.

But she touched Saguru. She let him touch her, only for a moment.

He’ll be properly petting her in no time.

~

Saguru isn’t deaf like Mayu, (she’s deaf but she hears a little bit, she explained,) but he can’t always use his voice. (Like when he’s scared or after he has a meltdown.) But when his voice gives out, his hands still work. And if he can speak (sign) with his hands, then not being able to talk with his voice won’t matter.

So Mayu teaches him how to sign whenever he’s in Japan. She also helps him pick a Japanese to JSL dictionary, and a couple of books for beginners to take with him to England so he can learn even when she’s not teaching him.

His mother learns a little, his father even less, so it’s hard to talk to them when he’s nonverbal, but they get by. He would be lying if he said he wasn’t disappointed, but he understands. (They’re busy.) Learning a new language is hard.

But now, even when his voice doesn’t work, he can sign to someone. (To Mayu.) He can even sign when his voice still works and just doesn’t want to talk out loud. Talking makes him tired sometimes, but signing doesn’t.

And when he signs it makes Mayu happy, which he likes a lot.

~

SAGURU IS ELEVEN, and he enters secondary school.

His mother suggests that he enrolls in a sport after school, to have an outlet for all his energy. (Violence, he knows she means.)

But Saguru doesn’t like sports. He doesn’t get along with others well enough to play on a team. And aside from that he would rather be reading, or playing with the local crows, or doing literally anything else instead of being forced to spend more time than he has to with his classmates or other kids his age. “I don’t want to.”

“It is because it’s new?”

“No. I don’t wanna play with other kids.”

“It’s a new school. You don’t know anyone, so you can’t say that you don’t want to play with them yet.”

“That doesn’t matter.”

“Your classmates might be different this time,” she says. 

“Mama, I said I don’t want to!”

She sighs. “Alright, I’m not going to make you.”

“Good.”

He refuses to do a sport.

~

Saguru’s classmates are not different in secondary school.

Two boys a year above him (Joshua Black, 12, and Sam Pines, also 12,) have decided that he’s their new target because he talks funny, (it’s not his fault that he prefers big words. And really, he’s only attempting to speak politely to avoid making his peers angry,) is in special ed, (most of the kids in special education get picked on just for that fact,) and is a “certified spaz.” (To be fair, he does startle at loud noises in the hall because the fluorescent lighting sets him on edge.)

The first time they have an altercation in the hallway where they try to corner him, Saguru walks away with a bruised cheek. But he also kicked Sam in the ribs and gave Joshua a black eye. (They absolutely deserved it.) All three of them get detention. The teachers make the mistake of putting them in detention together, and another fight breaks out when Sam throws a spitball at him, and Saguru throws his book at Sam’s face.

It earns him another week of detention. This time, in a separate room from the other two.

It’s not their first crossing, and it won’t be the last.

~

Saguru’s own blood is under his nails. He’s breathing heavily, still crying, coming down from a meltdown that had been building for a few days from various stressful events and sensory trips. It came crashing down on him not even an hour after Mayu said that they had to reschedule the flight to England, meaning that Saguru and his mother would be leaving a week earlier than planned, putting their new travel date in two days.

The first thing he feels is Mayu’s arms wrapped around him, too tight to be comfortable. (Grounding, calming.) She must have offered a hug, and he must have accepted, but he doesn’t remember much after he started scratching himself. Then, he notices that he’s bleeding. He hurt himself. (Again.) It’s only after that thought that he registers the stinging on the sides of his face.

Her first order of business is replacing her hug with his weighted blanket. When that’s done, He sniffs and hiccups and scrubs still-falling tears from his face while Mayu cleans up the blood on his fingers and face and applies bandaids.

Around now, his parents would ask if he can still talk. (The answer is always no.) They have a system when he can’t talk: he has whistles for yes, (low to high,) and no, (high to low,) and to get their attention, (two short whistles.)

Mayu doesn’t ask that. She waves a hand in the corner of his vision slowly (not overwhelming) and waits until he looks at her hands directly. “Do you want me to go away or stay with you?” she signs.

He peeks his hands out from under his blanket and signs back, “With you.”

“Stay here, or do something?”

Saguru hesitates, hands curling up.

Mayu strokes the sides of his face, smoothing down his bandaids before she pulls her hands back to sign again. “How about we make cookies before we start packing again?”

He nods.

“Come on, then. Bring your blanket.”

Saguru trails behind her with his blanket draped over his head, and mostly fetches ingredients as he watches what she does instead actively helping. He doesn’t get his voice back for the rest of the day, but that’s alright. He can still talk to her.

~

SAGURU IS TWELVE, and his meltdowns get increasingly worse. In addition to his already bad habit of hitting himself, he’s been scratching his face and hands deep enough to leave scars, and his nonverbal spells have been lasting days at a time.

His doctor says they should try to put him on anti-anxiety medication. His parents also hope that it might calm down his constant urge to fight. Saguru doesn’t object, he would love it if he weren’t so high-strung all the time.

Fortunately, medication (after trying a few kinds) works at least a little bit to bring down his overall anxiety levels. His sensory issues haven’t gone away, (they never will, autism doesn’t go away,) but he’s less twitchy about smaller things now. He still has meltdowns, but not quite as frequently. It’s not as big a change as his parents were hoping for, but it’s significant enough that Saguru stays medicated.

Unfortunately, they don’t really help the whole fighting thing. By Christmas he’s been in detention four times for major fights, suspended for another fight, as well as gotten in seven minor scuffles that never got back to the teachers.

His parents are worried. They love him. (They’re disappointed.)

~

The mother crow with the scratched beak visits him frequently. Saguru keeps gifts and treats on hand to give to her. She continues to give him gifts as well, and he keeps them in a dresser drawer. She’ll land directly on his leg if he’s sitting still in the yard, and she’ll let him pet her if she’s in a good mood. She brings other crows to meet him, and he slowly meets more of the crows in his neighborhood.

Back in England he’s gotten hummingbirds to sit on his hand, which his mother and Mayu think is the most impressive thing ever. But hummingbirds just eat out of his palm once and they flit away to find their next meal. There’s something especially nice about crows who will stay with him for long periods of time and keep coming back to him because they just seem to enjoy his company.

~

“Saguru,” his father knocks on the door frame of his bedroom. “Have you seen my watch anywhere?”

Saguru, who stole the watch from his dresser a half hour ago and has spent the better part of that time laying on his side in the middle of the floor while rapidly opening and closing the watch, suddenly stops and stares at his father. “Yes.”

“Excellent!” His father comes closer and takes the watch when Saguru presents it to him. “Where did you find it?”

“I took it.”

“Hmm,” he looks carefully at the watch. “Then, would you happen to be the reason it keeps disappearing and reappearing?”

“Maybe.”

“I thought I was going crazy! Good to know it was just you,” he laughs. (Loud.) “You like this old thing, do you?”

“Yes.”

“What do you like about it?” His father hands the watch back. “Can you tell me?”

More identifying things. (He doesn’t think other kids have this much trouble identifying their emotions and why they like or dislike things. It’s nice that his parents remind him to practice it.) “It ticks.”

His father settles in next to Saguru, who’s still laying on the floor. “And why do you like the ticking?”

“The sound,” Saguru says. “And I like watching it move.”

“Anything else?”

“It feels nice in my hands,” he says as he rubs his thumb over the rim of the watch, then over the chain as it makes soft clinking noises. “And I like doing this.” He snaps the watch shut and clicks it open, then again, and over and over and over until he has a rhythm and doesn’t stop.

“Huh!”

The exclamation startles Saguru out of his trance, and he nearly drops the watch when he jumps.

“Sorry, sorry,” his father says. “Didn’t mean to startle you. So, you like stimming with it?”

“Mhm.” He opens the watch and clicks it closed one more time, then leaves it closed so he doesn’t get lost in a rhythm again.

“Would you like to have it?”

“Eh?” Saguru looks between the watch and his father a few times. “Mine?”

“Why not? I think you like it more than I ever did.”

Saguru clicks it open and shut three more times. “Mine forever?” (Has to confirm.)

“Yep. All yours now.”

“Don’t you need a watch?” 

“I can buy any old watch for myself, don’t worry.”

Saguru clicks the watch open and shut, almost ready to lose himself in it again, then remembers to say, “Thank you, Papa.”

“You’re welcome!” His father smiles. (Beams.) “Anything for you.”

~

Mayu will no longer be living in Japan permanently. When summer is over, she’ll be coming to England with him. His parents say that it will be better to have her over all the time, not just in Japan. His mother is busier with work, and Saguru needs someone in the house to watch him.

It’s new, but he’s okay with it. He’s used to Mayu. She’s nice and soft and knows when she should and shouldn’t hug him and they can use sign language when he’s nonverbal. Mayu being here all the time is good. (He likes it.)

~

SAGURU IS THIRTEEN, and he begs for a bird.

More specifically, he makes an extensive argument to join the British Falconers’ Club and get a hawk in the future, when he finishes training under an experienced master.

He drags both of his parents to the living room to sit on the couch while he stands in front of them and makes a perfectly logical case for why he should be allowed to do this. (He’s done his research.) He explains that he knows birds of prey inside and out, he’s willing to put in the time and effort to take care of a hawk and let it hunt, and he’ll make sure his parents and Mayu will never have to take care of it, barring special circumstances where he won’t be home like a school trip. He knows that traveling back and forth between England and Japan will be difficult with a hawk in tow, as there’s no way he could take a bird that big in the cabin. But his parents charter private planes with some frequency already when traveling, and if that isn’t an option then he knows that it’s still possible to transport a hawk in the cargo hold of a plane. (Not ideal, but doable.)

His mother’s immediate response (as anticipated) is, “No.”

“Dear, you don’t have to crush his dreams so quickly.”

His mother gives his father a look (hard to describe) that he knows signifies a silent conversation underneath their verbal one. “ _You_ won’t be the one who has to take care of a bird when Saguru is absent.”

“Neither of you, or Baaya, will have to take care of my bird because I won’t let you touch my bird without my permission,” Saguru says.

His mother calls a local group that’s part of the Falconer’s Club and asks if it would be alright for Saguru to speak with an experienced falconer. (Saguru is certain she’s doing this in hopes that someone will tell him that he should give up on falconry because it’s too difficult for a boy his age.) They end up going to one of their monthly meet-ups. (Just to visit, she says.)

Unfortunately for his mother, Saguru has a renewed vigor after getting to see birds of prey in action. Not only that, but the group he talked to largely agreed that (even though he’s young) he’s got a knack for interacting with birds and could probably manage a starter hawk after a few years of training.

One woman (Marian Dumont, 42, possibly 162cm but he’s still learning how to guess heights,) gives his mother her number, saying that she’s had young apprentices before, and if Saguru really is interested in falconry that they should call her.

Saguru considers it a win when she tells his father about the excursion, and his father laughs.

~

Saguru puts Sam Pines in the hospital.

He and Joshua corner him against his own locker, with Joshua snapping it shut and keeping his hand against it to cage Saguru in.

“Hey spaz,” Sam starts. “We heard you totally flipped in math yesterday. That true?”

“It’s none of your business,” Saguru glares.

“Micah said you cried like a little bitch,” Joshua grins. (Malicious.) “What was it this time? Were the lights too bright again?”

“You got your dumb watch confiscated, right?” Sam pokes him in the nose. “You know, we can give you a much better reason to cry, if y--”

Saguru bites his hand.

He feels bone crunch under his teeth, blood filling his mouth and running down his chin. As soon as he unclenches his jaw, Sam is on the floor. He’s screaming, and a lot more students start yelling too. For once, Saguru doesn’t feel a need to run. He just stares Sam down, daring him to try anything else.

Sam is taken away to the nurse. (Familiar.) He’s taken to the principal's office. (Familiar.) He gets yelled at. (Familiar.) Mayu is called. (Familiar.)

He gets expelled. (New.)

Suspension isn’t a sufficient enough punishment anymore, not with the offenses he’s racked up since he started secondary school. Giving a boy a concussion by slamming him into a concrete floor, (he tried to take his copy of Sherlock Holmes that he was reading during recess,) scratching a girl across the face, (she grabbed his headphones to get his attention,) breaking a boy’s nose, (he was mocking him for “talking like a smartass,”) not to mention numerous other bruises and cuts and black eyes given to students (mostly Sam and Joshua) in fights, as well as several screaming matches with teachers who tried to take away his watch because he was disrupting classes. (He’s in special ed, shouldn’t they know how important stims are for neurodivergents to be able to focus?)

Biting Sam’s hand nearly in half is the final straw, though. His family is pressing charges. His father offers to pay for Sam’s surgery. Saguru assumes that’s the end of it, and his parents don’t tell him otherwise.

He can’t even use a meltdown as an excuse. All Sam did was put his hand in biting range.

This is... bad. (He’s certain.)

He doesn’t feel bad for Sam. (He’s mostly certain.) Sam needs surgery to put his hand back together, but Saguru doesn’t care. Part of him thinks Sam deserves it. Maybe he’ll finally stop beating up younger kids because his hand is busted. (Saguru hopes he’ll never be able to make a fist again.)

The other part of him thinks that it was too much, judging by how his parents and Mayu are treating this. His parents have never been the type for outright punishment, as Saguru’s reaction to it is often extreme and he ends up hurting himself in some way or another because he gets so stressed about it. But this time, he’s been grounded. He’s crossed some kind of line, but he doesn’t know what.

~

Saguru has a brand new set of classmates. They don’t know him. He’s still in special ed, which automatically makes him weird. But he makes a pointed effort to act as normal as he can.

This effort is ruined almost immediately, as he has a meltdown due to the new environment three days after his transfer. He runs away while he’s still coherent, but he knows people saw him start to cry and shake for (seemingly) no reason in the hallway.

He only has a few months in this new school before it ends. But even when he tries to act normal he gets in three fights that escalate from taunting, four that are caused by someone targeting him, and one that he really should have been able to avoid if only Saguru’s first reaction wasn’t always violence instead of listening to clear up a misunderstanding.

He doesn’t break anyone’s bones, though. He thinks about Sam, and always pulls his punches. Sam, screaming and wide-eyed and afraid of him. Sam, whose blood is still a strong memory in Saguru’s mouth.

Fights are becoming more unpleasant, no longer the release he looks for.

~

(Maybe he did go too far.

He still doesn’t regret putting Sam in the hospital. But he can acknowledge that it was extreme, at least.

Maybe he should try to tone down his fight response.)

~

Pretty much all the crows in the neighborhood at his house in Japan know him by sight, as well as by sound. Saguru has a specific whistle he uses to announce his presence if they haven’t noticed he’s in the area.

He doesn’t pretend to know all the crows in turn, but there are a few who he recognizes and gives names. The first crow he befriended with the scratched beak is Mako. One of her babies with a distorted caw is Ken, who likes to hang upside down from things (including Saguru’s hands) to play. Hana always brings him bright flowers and has a specific caw that she only uses with him. A fairly big crow with a twisted foot is Mochi, who Saguru found stuck in a fence (after his mate led him there) and Saguru took care of him while he healed. His foot didn’t heal quite right, but he can still walk just fine.

Then there’s one that he affectionately calls Jackass, and she likes to play in... very specific ways. Like trying to steal his stuff. Or dropping things on his face. Or landing directly on his head with no warning while he’s out walking. Or sneaking up from behind him and startling him with an obnoxiously loud screech. He’s learned to retaliate by snatching her out of the sky and throwing her, which doesn’t deter her at all. (In fact, Saguru knows she likes it, or else he would have stopped after the first time he tried it.)

All in all, birds really are better than people. The crows he plays with have never once made him want to hurt them. They’re easy to understand, and they’re never actually mean to him.

Saguru is glad that, at least, birds will be his friends.

~

SAGURU IS FOURTEEN, and he finally acknowledges that something has to change.

He knows he’s difficult. Yet still, his parents have done so much to accommodate him. To teach him how to do normal things, how to be sympathetic, how to socialize, and be functional in society. They even indulge his special interests.

He’s far luckier than other kids in special ed or the social classes he used to take. A lot of parents fail to grasp the needs of their autistic children or belittle them unintentionally. (Saguru’s parents would never, and have never.) His parents are understanding of the fact that he has more needs than an average teenager, that he’s probably never going to be able to live on his own. Luckily, they have the financial means to take care of him. (They even pay Mayu to essentially be his full-time caretaker.)

He can’t help his sensory issues or his meltdowns, though the meltdowns have become somewhat easier to manage with age. (Even though they’ll never stop.)

But he can help some of the other things. Like biting (mostly) unprovoked.

Saguru knows he’ll always be the weird kid. (Unavoidable.) But maybe he can stop being the kid who gets into fights all the time. (Difficult.) And hopefully not the kid who has crying meltdowns in the middle of the hall. (Marginally easier, since he’s learning to self-regulate.) It just puts a strain on his parents and Mayu when they have to smooth things over after he dishes out new injuries to his classmates.

He’s causing problems.

Mayu and his parents already put up with so much from him at home, with the pretense that being weird and breaking down at home is so he can function better out of the house. (When he steps into the so-called real world.) But he’s not functioning better outside, is he?

He’s causing problems.

He has to fix this.

~

Saguru asks his mother if he can learn how to box.

“Boxing? What brought this on?”

“I want to take up a sport.”

His mother chuckles. “What happened to falconry being the only sport you need?”

“You said that a sport could help me stop getting in fights so much, to curb my unchecked aggression.” Well, she did say it more kindly than that. But he knows what she meant.

“...I did say that. But I think that _boxing_ might have the opposite effect we’re looking for.” She rolls her chair away from her desk and turns to Saguru to give him her full attention. “I worry about what will happen if you get better at fighting.”

“Sherlock Holmes boxes,” he says, which isn’t an argument against her point at all. (But it is an important argument nonetheless.) “And I think if I have a safe place to fight, maybe I won’t fight at school so much.”

“How are you so sure?” He recognizes her tone. She isn’t saying no, she just wants to hear his reasoning. She always lets him make a fair case, (like with falconry,) even if she doesn’t approve.

“I don’t want to get into fights anymore,” he says. “I think I feel bad about it now.” Well, he feels bad about making messes for his parents.

She looks surprised. “You do?”

“Yeah.” Just not for the reason she thinks.

“Is this because of that Sam boy?”

“No, I don’t feel bad about him,” he says without hesitation. (He really doesn’t.) “But I don’t think I want to do something like that again.”

His mother relaxes. (Relief? Just thinking?) “I think we can look into boxing, if you really want.”

~

Saguru isn’t sure if boxing really does help his aggression, but it is fun.

It’s nice to hear his opponent tell him “good game,” and nobody walks away angry even if you leave them with bruises.

He likes being able to walk away from a fight and not get in trouble.

~

It’s summer in Japan, and Saguru asks his father to teach him to make phone calls.

Knowing how to use a phone isn’t the issue. (Saguru is perfectly aware of how phones work.) He can text faster than he can talk at this point. (Text-based conversation is frankly easier to understand than spoken words.)

His issue is that nine times out of ten, if he makes or answers a phone call, he freezes up and can no longer speak. (Two out of ten, he’ll stay nonverbal for a good hour after the fact.)

He doesn’t like the idea of making phone calls still, but his father is enthusiastic in helping him. He says he knows just the thing to get Saguru used to the phone.

“Alright, first step. Take your phone out of your pocket and hold it.”

Saguru does so. (Hesitantly.)

“Now, pretend that your phone is a police comm.”

“Huh?”

“Give it a try!”

“It doesn’t look like a police comm.”

“Come on, now. I know you’ve got trouble with pretending, but this’ll be good practice. I’ll call you--I’m right here, remember, you can see me. It’s not a stranger on the other line. We’ll pretend we’re talking over a comm system.”

Saguru is still skeptical, but his father seems so sure.

It’s actually not that hard to talk, when they’re just across the room from each other. He can still see his father’s mouth moving even if it’s slightly out of sync. His father asks questions about what’s in the room, asking him to analyze his surroundings, like he’s giving a report.

When he stops shaking while doing that, they move to separate rooms. Saguru can still hear him talking through the wall. The actual conversations are much of the same: his father asking questions, and all Saguru has to do is respond.

Same song and dance, this time from separate rooms where Saguru can’t hear him.

The next step is actual conversation. But not right away. His father gets out paper, and helps him write out scripts. How to greet people, ask who’s calling, what to say before hanging up.

“We can’t make scripts for the middle of the conversation,” his father says. “But you’ve already got plenty of scripts for normal conversations, don’t you? You just need to learn to say them on the phone. But now, you have phone-specific scripts to let you _start_ talking on the phone and ease into the rest of the conversation.”

“That... makes sense.” It still makes him nervous. But it’s perfectly logical.

He does hang up the phone in a panic the first time his dad calls him from another room and pretends to be a stranger. But the second time, he can answer the phone with a shaky voice.

The whole process takes nearly a week due to Saguru losing spoons so fast while practicing all of this. On about day five, he can stumble through a fake conversation with his father so long as his eyes are glued to the paper his scripts are written on. When he starts to get anxious about it, he thinks about his phone just being a police comm. That’s fine. (Familiar.) Detectives in TV shows use police comms all the time.

It works. His heart still leaps into his throat when his phone rings, but he can talk on the phone now. It works.

~

SAGURU IS FIFTEEN, and he gets to assist on his first case. (Sort of.) His father brings him to work to let him see how things function behind the scenes, and he talks some of his subordinates into letting Saguru shadow them just to see what it’s like. Saguru tries not to be annoying, but he’s vibrating out of his skin and he’s fairly sure he’s testing the detectives’ patience. But that’s fine, because now he has the foothold he needs.

In Japan, he’s allowed to assist with cases that deal in white collar crime, and sometimes petty theft. (Things that won’t get him hurt, because he’s fifteen.) He gets no credit, and he knows they’re only letting him because they can’t say no to his father, but he gets to see the inner mechanisms of how the police work. In England, he has to harass cops to let him on the scene (or cross the tape somewhat illegally) and quickly makes a name for himself as a nuisance and an asshole across several stations. (Even though he gives them the answers to their cases.)

He ends up in the back of a lot of police cars. He’s never actually detained, but after a while they realize it’s easier to just lock him in the car and take him back to the station when they wrap up or else he’ll keep trying to walk onto the scene. His mother and Mayu get called to pick him up from various stations across England, and he’s told over and over to stop crossing police lines. (It doesn’t stop him.)

Even if it’s annoying, it’s at least some form of experience. And eventually, a handful of cops start to get used to him. Shoving him in the car becomes more trouble than it’s worth, and some of them realize that he actually gets things right. He still gets no credit, but he doesn’t care. Eventually it won’t matter, when he’ll be able to be a detective for real and they won’t be able to push him away.

He’s grateful, honestly, that his special interest is directly related to something he can monetize. Saguru has a difficult time relating to others on the spectrum because he’s sensitive to the way their ticks and stims clash against his own, but he feels bad for the majority of them who hyperfixate on things they can’t turn into a career. And there are others he knows will refuse to turn their special interests into a career even if they’re capable of monetization, because putting pressure on something that makes them happy will suddenly turn it into a point of stress.

But Saguru wants to solve cases. Catch criminals. Help the people who’ve been hurt by these crimes. It’s already an incredible amount of pressure, (a thrill every time he gets answers that everyone else couldn’t, every time it puts someone who deserves it behind bars, every time someone innocent gets their justice,) so it makes no difference to his performance and enjoyment whether or not he gets a paycheck for it. Getting paid will be a bonus when he can legally work with the police instead of being a teen detective that’s only here because no one can get rid of him.

~

Saguru has been searching the whole damn house for his mother. He can’t figure out where she went. He thought she was in the kitchen, but he’s fairly certain he's checked everywhere twice and can't find any sign of her. (Shameful. He’s supposed to be a detective.) He gets halfway up the stairs to check the second floor again, but then he catches sight of Mayu in the hall and he stops. “Baaya,” he calls out loud to get her attention, and switches to signing to ask her, “Have you seen my mother anywhere?”

“I think she’s in the backyard,” she signs back.

No wonder. “Mama!” he yells as he runs back down the stairs and to the back doors.

Ah, his mother isn’t here either.

Time for drastic measures.

He plants himself in the central most point of the house. He’s been practicing this in parks, to see how far his range goes. But he hasn’t told Mayu or his parents about what he’s learned to do. No time like the present for them to find out, then. He puts his thumb and pointer finger (right hand) in his mouth, and blows.

The sound isn’t any louder than it normally is, (that is to say, it’s loud enough to make one’s ears ring for minutes after the fact) but it bounces across the walls in a jarring way that Saguru isn’t quite used to.

Almost immediately, his mother and Mayu both emerge from their separate points of the house. “What on earth was that?!” his mother exclaims.

“Mama, there you are,” Saguru says. (Brightly.) “I was trying to find you.”

“Was that _you?_ ” Mayu asks. “I could hear you all the way from my room.”

“Yes.” He holds up his hand. “I can whistle with my fingers now.”

“Don’t do that in the house again,” his mother says. “Please.”

“I won’t, promise.”

~

Saguru tries to get a provisional driver’s license.

He passes the written test flawlessly, and his mother lets him drive in an empty parking lot to get him used to being behind the wheel. It leaves Saguru jittery and on edge each day they go out to practice. (His mother says he’ll get over the nerves after a while.) He doesn’t usually have issues with focusing or multitasking, but he feels confined in a car and it messes with his perception. (He usually likes small spaces, but this is different.) He doesn’t like his vision being obstructed, and the mirrors don’t help with it. (Like his field of vision is too narrow.) He keeps wanting to physically turn to look behind him. (But he has to keep his eyes on the road.)

The first session driving with an instructor lasts 21 minutes and 14.62 seconds, he finds out once he gets back and can open his watch. (He couldn’t keep track in his head like normal.) After something like 12 minutes is where Saguru’s memory gets fuzzy. He knows that he ran over a curb and apparently stopped responding altogether to the instructor. When he was coherent again, the instructor had taken over the actual driving and was taking him back home. The whole thing leaves him shaky, and he decides to spend the better part of the rest of the day under his weighted blanket.

His father suggests they wait until he’s sixteen, to give him more time before he tries again. He also encourages Saguru and says that this is a fear he can get over, like the phone. Saguru isn’t quite sure that’s the case. The lights and sounds on the road make him twitchy just when walking on the sidewalk or riding in a car. (He usually reads on his phone or dissociates, if he isn’t actively conversing with someone else in the car.) He won’t give up just yet, but it’s going to be difficult.

~

Saguru gets a hawk. (He gets a hawk.) An eyass (nestling) red tailed hawk. (He loves her.) He’s spent almost three years training with Marian to get to this point. (He’s so excited.) He gets to teach her how to fly, hunt, behave like a bird, be his partner. (He loves her.) Her down feathers make her look like a dandelion, and she has a perpetually angry look that all red tailed hawks have from the moment they hatch. (She’s perfect.)

His next three, more likely four months will be spent intensively training her without much rest on his part. (It’s worth it.) He doesn’t want to risk her developing any bad habits due to imprinting on him.

He names her Watson. (He loves her.)

~

A girl in Saguru’s class (Alexa McKenzie, 16, 167cm,) asks him to go on a date. A real, actual, romantic kind of date.

He hasn’t talked to her before, at least no more than his other classmates. (That is, not a lot.) However, he has noticed that she stares at him frequently. (He didn’t think it was due to attraction, but he’s been wrong before.)

He says yes. (He panics.) She sets a time and place: this Saturday, 3:30pm, a local ice cream parlor. He agrees to that as well. (Still panicking.)

Saguru shows up at 15:22:03 and waits at the entrance. 15:30:00 hits, and he reminds himself to not be concerned. Other people (neurotypicals) don’t pay attention to time as closely as he does. It’s likely she’ll take a few more minutes to get here. He’ll check his watch at intervals.

15:35:00. Alexa should be here any moment.

15:40:00. Perhaps she was held up in traffic?

15:50:00. Something must be wrong.

16:00:00. He wishes they had exchanged phone numbers. He has no way to check if she’s safe, if she got sick or was prevented from coming somehow.

16:30:00. This rules out the possibility of her forgetting the time and coming an hour later. He calls Mayu to pick him up.

He spends the rest of the weekend concerned and jittery. He hopes she’ll be there on Monday, and not discover that she was suddenly hospitalized.

Monday arrives, and Saguru finds Alexa outside of their classroom. He’s relieved to see that she’s unharmed (at least physically). “Are you alright? You didn’t show up to our date on Saturday.”

“Uh, yeah, duh.” Alexa’s friend (Mary Lee, 15, 161cm,) giggles beside her.

“I’m afraid I don’t know what happened,” Saguru says, still worried. “What kept you?”

“Do I have to spell it out, retard? I didn’t go on purpose.”

What? “What?”

“Nobody would ever wanna date you.”

Oh. (He should have known that.) “Then, it was a pity date?”

Alexa snorts. Mary laughs with her. (Mocking.) “It was a joke, idiot. I _stood you up_.”

Anger, as usual, is the first thing that surfaces. He clenches his fist. He wants to punch her in the face. He doesn’t.

“Are you not gonna spaz out this time?” Mary asks.

“No.” He readjusts his bookbag and makes a conscious decision to not swing it and smash Alexa’s head between his heavy textbooks and the wall behind her. (He’s much bigger than her. He could hurt her. The idea of starting a fight with her is unpleasant.) He needs to go somewhere else and calm down. He needs to not scream in her face. “Kindly step in front of a bus when you go home today,” he grits out before he makes his way (nearly runs) down the hall.

He ends up skipping class, crouched down behind the bushes in the back of the school. He thinks, when it’s done, that this is the best he’s ever handled a meltdown by himself. He cried. (But he kept it mostly quiet.) The dull pain on his cheekbones and brow means he hit himself at least a few times. (But he knows from experience that it won’t bruise.) He touches the side of his face, hoping to find nothing, but he’s met with a stinging sensation on his skin and blood on his fingertips. (Not ideal, but better than screaming.) It may leave a scar or two, but he’s already got scars on his face. (His usual excuse is that Watson made the scars, though he resents people thinking that he didn’t train her well. She’s incredibly well-behaved and loves him very much, and would never hurt him like this because he handles her perfectly.)

He checks his watch. Second period has already started.

His breath is still hitching in his throat and he’s still scrubbing away tears with shaky hands. He’ll slip back in between classes when he’s more presentable.

Saguru ends up leaving school grounds at lunchtime and texting Mayu to pick him up a few streets down.

~

The first time Saguru shows up in the news, he feels like he’s slipped into the Twilight Zone. He’s being praised by the public, called some kind of genius teen detective. A far cry from the nuisance who sneaks past police tape and gets shoved into cars by the cops. All he did was stick his nose where he shouldn’t and solve a case that was stumping them.

He’s interviewed. (Sort of.) A woman asks him questions on the scene, and Saguru is mostly confused through it. He feels like his answers are stilted and awkward, but he just relays how he solved the case as best he can. His answers are in the paper the next day. (What the hell.)

He hopes that’s the end of it.

~

Saguru contemplates moving to Japan, at least... somewhat permanently. He would be doing the opposite of what he usually does, spend his school months in Japan and summer months in England. The idea of changing that pattern is daunting, but he’s been thinking about this for a while.

He’s going to be “the foreigner” no matter where he is, (even though he’s lived every summer in Japan since he was born and was raised perfectly bilingual,) so it’s not like his social life would be better if he moves. But it’s not going to harm it either. (It’s not like he has friends or anyone who will miss him.) So he’s been researching high schools in Japan and debating if it would be better to transfer to a Japanese highschool in second year rather than do sixth form in England.

His father is home less often than his mother is, but that’s not an issue because he has Mayu. He may be fifteen, (an age that’s perfectly acceptable and legal in Japan to live independently,) and he would of course still be living at home, but living without Mayu isn’t an option.

Left on his own, he can keep a basic routine just fine. He can even use the train or buses to travel and go places like school, the store, his boxing classes, or to the fields where he lets Watson hunt. But the major issue is that he gets nervous and has panic attacks when he’s left completely alone for more than a long weekend. Meltdowns are terrifying, and having no one to help him decompress when he comes down from them leaves him shaky and uncertain and turns into an awful spiral the longer he’s left alone. The stress has caused him to (unintentionally) self-harm many times, even outside of actual meltdowns. His hands and face both have scars from his nails. (He’s glad they’re not too eye-catching.)

“What brought this on?” Mayu asks, staying a healthy distance away from Saguru due to the fact that Watson is perching on the back of his chair. (Watson likes Mayu, and she sometimes tries to perch on Mayu like she does with Saguru.)

“I don’t know.” Saguru taps his list of pros and cons of moving to Japan. “The idea hit me, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it.”

“I’m sure your father would be happy to see more of you, if you do move here.”

“I’d like that too.” Flipping the script still is nerve wracking to consider, but there are of course some pros to the situation.

But so far, the cons list outweighs the pros. He’ll continue thinking about it.

~

SAGURU IS SIXTEEN, and he ends up staying in England and doing sixth form. (It isn’t awful.) He’s withdrawn from special ed, since he doesn’t need the extra testing time in a separate room anymore, and he determines that he’s good enough at self-regulating to avoid needing help with meltdowns from teachers. More importantly, no one knows who he is. People still think he’s quirky, of course, but he makes a significant effort to attract as little attention as possible. He pushes down his anger and saves it for boxing or lets it out with a snappy comment. If he gets overwhelmed at school, he tries to hide in a closet or somewhere else quiet for a few minutes. He can’t prevent meltdowns, but he’s sort of learned to postpone them. Have a small, partial meltdown, let himself be overwhelmed for just a few minutes, continue with his day, and then finish the meltdown when he gets home.

If he’s in class when he’s getting overwhelmed, he’ll start counting seconds and make observations on his classmates in his head to distract himself until class ends and he can escape somewhere quieter between classes. If he can’t wait that long, he can excuse himself to go to the bathroom.

For the first time in his life, he can appear kind of normal. At home, he’s allowed to be weird and yell and stim and hide under tables and make bird sounds and sit on the edge of the couch like a gargoyle and drag his weighted blanket around the house with him and have the freedom to have total meltdowns. And when he can let that out, it means he has minimal stress when he steps out in the real world to let him function as best as he’ll ever be able to.

He gets a reputation of being uptight, (he just likes structure,) having no respect for authority, (he does respect authority, but only when they're actually worth giving respect,) and generally being rude to classmates. (Familiar. It’s a reputation he already has with cops in both Japan and England.) The important thing is that he’s no longer annoying. Weird. A spaz.

Saguru hasn’t gotten into a single fight in sixth form. (New.)

~

The second time Saguru is in the news, he really wishes he wasn’t. Someone (Brent Janeson, 16, 174cm,) at school recognizes him.

“Hey, you’re the guy from the news, right? The teen detective?”

“Yes,” Saguru says. (Cautiously.) “What of it?”

“Holy shit, that’s so cool!”

What the fuck. (What the fuck.) “It was nothing.”

“Hey, I read about you, too!” Another classmate (Kelly Nguyen, 16, 155cm,) approaches. “How come the police let you solve cases? I mean, you’re still in school, isn’t that against the rules or something?”

“The police can’t stop me,” he answers honestly. “It’s not my fault they can’t do their jobs.”

They don’t seem fazed by his obviously rude attitude towards cops. (Odd.) Kelly brushes her hair behind her ear. (Wait, isn’t that a sign of interest?) “So, what’s it like being a detective?”

“It’s normal for me.” Saguru decides to shut this down. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to get to class.”

That was unpleasant.

~

Saguru schedules another session to drive with an instructor.

He doesn’t crash the car. (Barely.) But that’s why the tests are performed in modified cars: so that the instructor can take over when Saguru freezes in the middle of an intersection during a right turn and nearly careens into a light pole.

He walks away from it shaking again, and this time he’s gone nonverbal as well. (He’s unsure if it’s because he’s still afraid from driving or just mortified that he couldn’t complete a session again.)

~

“Watson really is a very beautiful bird,” his mother remarks as Saguru unfastens the jess around Watson’s feet.

“She is,” Saguru grins. He chirps at her, (praise,) and holds his fingers up near her face (asking if she wants to be pet). She chirps back and flaps her wings, lifting her head up in an invitation. Saguru strokes the feathers on her neck and down to her belly. “Yes, you are a lovely girl, aren’t you?” He chirps again and removes his fingers. She gives a quiet screech, indignant that he’s not petting and praising her anymore. “Alright, no more of that right now. You need to go out.” He holds his arm out (steady) and puts her in a position to fly north. He gives the appropriate clicking and short, sharp whistle that tells her to take off.

Saguru keeps a close eye on Watson as his mother spreads a blanket on the grass to sit down. “Do you want to join me?” she asks.

“No. I need to watch her, remember?”

He’ll never get tired of watching Watson fly. She’s beautiful, powerful, a perfect picture of a predator. (Flawless.) Of course he loves having her close, where he can talk to her and tease her for being an attention seeker, where she shows off how intelligent and playful she is. But she thrives in the sky, as all birds do. (He wishes he could join her.)

“Ah, Watson’s gone out of sight,” his mother says. “Did you remember to put a transmitter on her?”

“I did.” He always does. It’s common sense, but also a requirement. “I don’t need it, though.” He brings his hand up, then warns his mother: “I’m going to whistle.” She covers her ears as he sticks his fingers in his mouth and lets out a long and shrill noise. Watson comes back into view shortly. (From above, not near the ground.) “There must not be any prey over there. I’ll need to direct her elsewhere.”

“Take your time,” his mother calls to him, even though he’s already running out to meet Watson. “I brought a book.”

~

Saguru gets attention. Attention from girls, (who like him.) From boys, (who think he’s cool.)

It’s... (He doesn’t have the right words.)

It’s an opportunity, Mayu says. Maybe he can make friends because of this. If they think him being a detective is interesting, then that’s a point of connection for Saguru.

So, he tries to make a friend.

His first instinct is to keep some kind of gift on hand to offer. (But that’s weird for humans, isn’t it?) So, he just tries to engage in conversation (instead of trying to avoid) the next person (Maxwell Bradley, 17, 182cm,) who asks about his detective work during lunch period.

Maxwell seems interested at first, as far as Saguru can tell. But 12.2 minutes into the conversation (9.52 of them talking about Sherlock Holmes,) he notices that Maxwell has become fidgety. He also keeps glancing around, which Saguru doesn’t understand. Saguru is making perfect eye contact, not looking away at all.

“Hey would you look at that, class is about to start!” Maxwell yells. “See you later Saguru, bye!”

Maxwell pronounces his name wrong. (Most everyone does. He doesn’t expect them to get the sound right. All he really asks is that they put the emphasis on the correct syllables. He doesn’t think it should be that hard.) Maxwell also leaves remarkably fast, even though class doesn’t start for another 19.21 minutes. He thinks back on their interaction and realizes that 1: Saguru was dominating the conversation, and 2: Maxwell was exhibiting signs of discomfort.

Maybe gifts are the right way to go after all.

He keeps candy in his bag. The next time he’s approached it’s by a girl (Lucy Harrison, 18, 152cm,) a year above him, and Saguru digs in the pocket of his bag and holds out a hard candy to her.

“Erm, no thanks,” Lucy says. (Awkward.) “Sorry.”

It’s only after she walks away that he realizes he forgot to speak.

A boy (David Turner, 17, 171cm,) in the same year as Saguru actually seems interested in being friends with him. He asks about a case that he saw in the news, actually listens to Saguru’s answers, (no signs of discomfort,) and accepts the candy with a smile.

“I think I made a friend,” Saguru tells his mother and Mayu after school.

“That’s great!” his mother smiles. ‘You should invite him over to dinner sometime.”

“Or to meet Watson,” Mayu suggests. “You’ll have something to talk about if he’s here for your bird.”

That’s a solid strategy.

Saguru finds David at lunch and sits down across from him. “Do you want to meet my hawk?”

David blinks. (Surprised.) “You have a hawk? Like, a for real hawk?”

“A red tailed hawk. She’s a year old.”

“How the hell did you get your hands on a _hawk?_ ”

“I practice falconry. It’s perfectly legal.”

“Like hunting with falcons and shit? People still do that?”

“It’s considered a sport now.”

“Wow,” David says. (Impressed?) “Hell yeah I wanna meet your hawk.”

~

“Why did you do it?”

Somehow the news thinks it’s Saguru’s catchphrase, rather than a genuine question. He really does just want to know. People make no sense. He can put together clues and figure out who a culprit is, but the why of it nearly always eludes him.

~

David comes over to his house. First order of business is taking him to the mew in the backyard where Watson is.

“This is massive,” David says. “Just for one bird?”

“For one hawk, yes.” Saguru pulls the key out of his pocket to unlock the door. “She requires quite a bit of space in her mew as well as many other needs. If I don’t provide them, I could have my license revoked.”

“You need a license for a hawk?”

“Of course. It’s falconry,” Saguru scoffs as he opens the door. “It’s not like keeping a pet. She requires extensive care and maintenance.”

David steps in, and Saguru closes the door behind both of them. “Oh, holy shit.”

“Stay where you are right now. She distrusts new people.” Saguru begins putting on his glove. “Just one moment.” Once his glove is secured, Saguru steps closer to her and gives a sharp whistle. She immediately bounces from her perch and onto his arm. “This,” he turns to show David. (Proudly.) “Is Watson.”

“Like Sherlock Holmes?” David snorts. “I thought you said she was a girl. Can I come closer now?”

“She is a girl. And yes, you can come closer. She’s much more relaxed when I’m handling her.”

He says that, and normally it’s true, but Watson also clearly dislikes David. Saguru knows she won’t do anything to hurt David, and knows David is oblivious to how agitated she is, but it’s still concerning. He strokes the feathers on her breast to calm her.

David comes closer with wide eyes. “Damn, she’s huge. Can I pet her?”

“No.” He hardly even lets Mayu or his parents handle her. Petting is a supervised activity with people she’s familiar with, and only when he knows she won’t put up a fuss about someone other than Saguru touching her.

“ _You’re_ petting her,” David points out. “Just show me where--”

David has barely even moved to get near her, but Watson brings her wings up and screeches in his face. David immediately stumbles back. Saguru isn’t fazed except for the fact that his hair is a bit mussed from her wing hitting his head. He tells Watson “no” in a few repeated chirps, and continues stroking her until she’s calmer. Then, he turns to David, who’s now standing pressed against the far wall. “Sorry. Like I said, she distrusts new people.” Though she hasn’t had any reactions as bad as this before. Threat displays aside, she’s incredibly upset even after he’s calmed her down. “It’s alright, we’ll work on it the next time you’re over. We can retire to my room for now.”

He’d planned to bring Watson into the house along with David, (he usually keeps her in the house with him after school,) but he thinks it would be better if she stays in the mew for now. Once he’s made sure Watson is situated on her perch and he puts away his glove, Saguru leads David to his room. He doesn’t have a script beyond this, especially without Watson as a conversation buffer, but David seems more interested in Saguru’s bookshelf than talking for the moment.

“So, Saguru--”

“It’s pronounced さぐる,” he interrupts. “Well, I don’t expect you to pronounce the る correctly, I don’t think you can make that sound. But you’re putting the emphasis on the wrong place and using the wrong “A” sound. It’s Sah-gu-ru,” he repeats with a hard English “R”. “Not Suh-GU-ru.”

“Oh, uh, okay,” David says. “I was just gonna say that you... really like Sherlock Holmes, huh?”

“Yes,” he says. “I re-read the books at least once a year. I’ve seen and read every adaptation, even if they’re... unsavory. BBC Sherlock among them.”

“Aw come on, that show is pretty cool!”

“It isn’t. It’s a gross misrepresentation of Sherlock and everything he stands for. Sherlock is supposed to care about helping people. He’s sympathetic, kind, and would _never_ look down on Watson. BBC Sherlock only exists as a way to cater to people who call themselves “intellects” but are nothing more than antisocial morons with overinflated egos who want to mock people “lesser” than them, yet still have those people worship the floor they walk on. Not to mention, it’s an awful representation of autism, if you can call a whispered reference to Asperger’s Syndrome _representation_ ,” Saguru hisses. “I have an essay written on why it’s a poor adaptation, possibly even the worst there is. Would you like to read it?”

“An... essay?”

“Fourteen thousand and fifty two words. I’m sure I can find it.” Saguru turns to his desk where his laptop is.

“Hey it’s fine, I’ll read it some other time?” David sounds unsure. “Is it something you wrote for English class?”

“No, this was on my own time.”

“Rrright.” David puts his hands in his pockets and looks around Saguru’s room. “Do you do anything else?”

There’s a tone in David’s voice that Saguru doesn’t recognize. (Curiosity?) “Anything else?”

“Yeah like. You’re really into this whole detective stuff. But what do you do for fun?”

“I... do detective work for fun,” Saguru replies. (Uncertainly.) “I also enjoy falconry. I like birds. I can accurately imitate most calls from 27 different species of birds, and I’ve made friends with quite a few crows in Japan.”

“Huh.” Saguru can’t identify his facial expression.

Something is wrong. “Is something wrong?”

“Nope! Not at all.” David pulls his phone out of his pocket, reading something on the screen. “Hey, my little sister just texted me. She needs a ride home from ballet, so I’m gonna bounce before dinner. Sorry, man.”

“I’ll see you out, then.”

(This seems familiar.)

~

Attempt number three at a provisional driver’s license goes just as poorly as the other two times. He doesn’t really remember what he did, and he mostly dissociates through the instructor describing the events to his mother.

“Did you forget your anxiety medication?” is the first thing she acts, when they’re in the safety of his room and he’s got his weighted blanket draped over his shoulders. (They both know that forgetting his medication isn’t the problem.)

He shakes his head and taps his phone.

“Good, I’m glad the reminders on your phone are helping.” She shifts on his mattress to face him fully. “Then, maybe we should put driving on hold.”

That’s where he suspected this conversation would end up. The easiest response noise he can make is pigeon cooing, just to show that he’s paying attention and she can continue.

She sighs. “Maybe indefinitely, if this is just going to cause you to lose control.”

He looks up at her, trying to put a questioning expression on his face.

“You didn’t have a full meltdown. But you did have something of a minor panic attack. The instructor said you let go of the wheel entirely to hide your face. Do you remember?”

He shakes his head again.

“All the more reason we should consider this a dead end,” she says. (Stern.)

Saguru doesn’t like that. He knows he’s never going to get over his sensory issues and anxiety enough to live alone, (he’s accepted that,) but he’d been looking forward to the independence of driving. (It seems like it will just be another thing Mayu has to continue to do for him.) He bites his lip and nods. He doesn’t fancy trying this a fourth time anyway.

“I’m sorry, love.” She adjusts his blanket so it won’t slip off. “But it’ll be fine. You can still ride the train.” True. Many autistics can’t even manage that much by themselves. “And lots of people don’t use cars at all. It’s not that odd.”

He knows. But he still doesn’t like this.

~

“David,” Saguru calls out to him in the hall. “I was looking for you. Where do you want to eat lunch?”

“I’m gonna go eat lunch with my friends, so...” he starts. (Awkwardly?)

“I’d love to meet your other friends.” That may have been a little bit too quick a response, but Saguru is excited about the idea of befriending more people.

“I was just gonna hang out with them by myself.”

(Familiar.)

“Of course. Maybe another time.”

(Too familiar.)

“Actually, uh, Saguru,” he makes a point to use the correct emphasis on the syllables. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you.”

(Please, don’t be familiar.)

“Man, you’re kinda...” David cringes. (Winces? An uncomfortable expression, either way.) “You kinda freak me out sometimes, not gonna lie. Like, the detective stuff is cool and all, but also I got other stuff to do besides... well. Detectives.”

“Oh.” (Familiar.) “That’s understandable.”

“Yeah, so, I’m gonna pass on hanging out with you. No hard feelings, right? We’re just not vibing.”

“Yeah.”

David gives him fingerguns. “Cool. You do you, dude.”

“I will,” Saguru replies, but David is out of earshot and Saguru’s response is quiet.

This is definitely preferable to being bullied and getting in fights.

(Saguru thinks this might hurt more, though.)

~

Saguru hears about Kaitou Kid.

He doesn’t always go to Japan on his mid-school breaks, but he has to go to Japan this time. (He has to.) He’s rarely involved in high stakes cases due to his anxiety, but Kaitou Kid is a phantom thief. It's a thrilling case with no threat to his life. It’s perfect.

If the cops in Japan can’t catch Kaitou Kid, Saguru will.


End file.
